Everybody got into the rugged outdoors business and into lifestyle merchandising and so forth and so on. And everybody was getting into catalogs and e-commerce and - you name it. It was just intense.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had a fundamental love of fashion, of products and accessories. I loved the merchandising side of it and understanding how to maximize sales.
It seemed glamorous when I used to go into work and get to be on a trading floor or see how the business worked a little bit before I ever understood what it was.
When I came into the business, things changed a lot, and my life was in a real state of flux.
I grew up in a show-business family, but we were working-class show business. There was nothing glamorous about it. You had great things one day and the next day, nothing.
Growing up, it was about finding a way to entertain myself outdoors. We spent all the summers on the beach, camping with my family a bunch, and traveling as much as we could. My parents wouldn't let me watch too much TV growing up or play video games, or anything like that.
Then I started to do furniture and interiors for a friend and just to get stuff in a magazine, and then slowly started to build up and started to doing exhibitions.
What we learned was that the collective glamour of a specialty store could sell a lot of merchandise.
My family was amazing; they exposed me to the world of show business, and, boy, it was the '70s and I got to spend a lot of time backstage at theaters and see the inner workings of how this entertainment industry is really put together.
There was a generation of people who moved here to make something of themselves. They had to really struggle and created really something on their own apart from a lot of attention. It was a really exciting time here.
I was always interested in fashion and beauty. I was fifteen when I was scouted in a flea market. Two years later, I arrived in New York. I was in awe because it was like another planet.
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